


vivat rex

by aprincessofdaxam



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-05-30 21:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15104834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprincessofdaxam/pseuds/aprincessofdaxam
Summary: What if things went a little differently just as Rhea launched the Daxamite invasion? Mon-El will figure out how to rise to the occasion, or ... well, Winn says "do or do not."





	1. Chapter 1

"Why won't it turn off?" J'onn shouts over the whir of machinery as the generator, instead of responding to Kara's fists or Lena's prompts or any external actions, seems to instead kick into a higher gear, the moving parts beginning to blur.  
  
"I don't know, she must have made it self-sustaining somehow." Lena's hands are flying over the keyboard, her mind racing behind her eyes.  
  
"What did you do, Mother?"  
  
Despite being outnumbered, Rhea only raises one eyebrow and smirks, with the calm confidence of one who is not alone.  
  
"You're _bringing_ something _here_ ," he realizes.  
  
J'onn and Kara exchange a look before Kara is off and through the shattered skylight, racing for the portal to try to stop or to face whatever is coming. His first instinct, as always, is to race after her, but - _no_. He's needed here. She can take care of herself, he tells himself desperately, as he does every time he's forced to weigh tactics against his heart. She can take care of herself. He's needed here. If anyone can figure out and stop his mother, it's him.  
  
But the next thing he knows, Lena is on the floor, and his mother is holding a small metal disc in her hand and J'onn's eyes are going dazed before he crumples to the ground.  
  
So much for that.  
  
"What is that?" He frantically scrambles to the Martian's side, feeling for signs of life, and momentarily allows the relief when he hears breath, though shallow, a heartbeat, though erratic.  
  
"A White Martian gave me this." Rhea examines the piece in her hand as she walks a circle around them. A hunter circling downed prey, and for a moment, he is seven years old again, and afraid to move. "They developed this technology to keep the Greens under their control. It traps a Martian in his own mind - a never-ending nightmare. Pretty savvy, if you ask me."  
  
He forces his voice to be steady. "You've learned a lot of things about this world, Mother."  
  
"I've had to."  
  
She has circled around to face the computer panel again, to monitor her portal, so she doesn't see as he forces his shaking legs under him, as he reaches into the holster of his DEO-issued uniform.  
  
"And did you learn that we're not bulletproof here?"  
  
She doesn't turn around until she hears the click of the weapon cocking. And then - He'll have to tell Winn later that sometimes, people really _do_ laugh when you point a gun at them.  
  
"Put the gun down, Mon-El. You don't want to hurt me."  
  
And suddenly, coming on without warning, he is furious that she is laughing - as though she's faced with a child with a toy.   
  
_"Shut up!"_  
  
From across the lab, Rhea watches her son struggle to force his anger down after the outburst, returning to a blank expression. She frowned. She hasn't cared for this new development. For as long as he lived, she'd been able to read him. He was unfocused, yes, sometimes even rebellious, neither befitting his station, but always so open with his emotions. He would have had to learn how to school that, but as a youth, it had been an asset to her. She calculates that it is time to appeal to the changes in him.  
  
"The Kryptonian was right," she says, working to keep the distaste from her voice. "You are a hero of Earth. Would a hero kill his own blood? When you were a boy, and I would put you to sleep at night, you used to say to me that you would always love me. And even though you've turned your back on me, I know that is still true."  
  
She watches the raging emotions behind his gray eyes. "Where's Father?" he breathes out. When the answer is not immediately forthcoming - _"Where is my father?"_  
  
She has schooled this line in her mind.

"Your father was so hurt when you abandoned us that ... he took his own life."  
  
"No."  
  
The gun, which he has kept steadily trained despite his limbs vibrating with tension, clatters violently to the floor. Rhea kicks it aside, her hands on his trembling shoulders. He barely feels it. He barely hears her.  
  
He's never been able to please his father. And now, finally, utterly, completely, he has irrevocably failed him.  
  
He distantly hears the beeping of a monitor, alerting his mother to a change in the portal, as she turns away to look. Her voice cuts through the white noise of the roaring in head.  
  
"We were not the only people to escape the destruction of our planet," Rhea announces. "More than a hundred Daxamites survived. They sought safety in ships and fled, scattering across the galaxy, until the time we could build a New Daxam. They just needed a way to get here."  
  
And as the reality of what is happening at the portal slowly dawns on him, a gunshot suddenly splits the air.


	2. Chapter 2

It's reflex that has him catching his mother by the arms as she crumples to the ground, kneeling beside her and leaving him looking across the floor in shock at Lena, on her hands and knees under the table opposite. She still holds the smoking gun, which Rhea had kicked within reach - moving it away from her errant son, in case he had another change of heart, but inadvertently sending it directly toward her blindsided colleague as the latter slowly awakened.  
  
They stare at each other for what seems like an eternity, but it can't be more than an instant.  
  
"I couldn't do it," Lena finally whispers. "If it was my mother. Even knowing what I know. You couldn't, either."  
  
Something rises in his chest - grief? gratitude? He will have time to examine it later. There's a crisis.  
  
"Can you shut down the portal?" Lena finds her feet, her legs only shaking a little, and busies herself. He turns his attention back to his mother,  
  
"Mon-El," she gasps. His hands are red where he's instinctively placed them on the wound on her abdomen. Were she human, perhaps, with prompt attention, she could be saved. But not in this lifetime, not on this planet, not with a lead allergy, her face already taking on a grayish tint. She knows it, too.  
  
"You don't know what you've done," she seethes in a whisper.  
  
"She's trying to protect this planet from you. You lied to her," he says. He's not sure what he should be telling her in this moment, so he starts with the truth.  
  
But something else is true, too. _We can't will ourselves not to feel anything,_ Kara had told him. He wishes he could.  
  
"It's still true," he tells her. "What you remembered. I remember it, too. I remember being a boy, and being so happy when you and Father would come home for the day. I wanted to make him proud. And I never stopped caring for you. Despite _everything_ , Mother. And I'm sorry it came to this."  
  
"I'm sorry, too," Rhea rasps. But before he can find any hope of a reconciliation, in the last - "From the day you were born, I tried to protect you. To shield you. Now I see that was a mistake. I left you open to be preyed upon."  
  
“I wasn't - " his voice automatically rises before he forces calm. "I wasn't a mark. I finally saw the truth about our home.”  
  
"You don't know the truth yet. But you will."  
  
The most final goodbye of their people - _beyalat Daxam_ \- those words don't feel right. Long live Daxam? What she stood for, that's not something that should remain. But there's an Earth phrase he's heard, and it feels right. Because it is true. He wishes her peace.  
  
"Rest in peace ... Mother."  
  
When silence falls, and remains, he is the one who lets go of her hand and closes her eyes.  
  
"They're ships."  
  
Lena's voice, even though it's not directed at anyone, and the dawning horror in it, shocks him back into the world around him. His head snaps up.  
  
_"We were not the only people to escape the destruction of our planet. More than a hundred Daxamites survived. They sought safety in ships and fled, scattering across the galaxy, until the time we could build a New Daxam. They just needed a way to get here."_  
  
But before he can move from his position on the ground -  
  
A green flash. Three tall men, in their silver armor and helmets, weapons at the ready, doubtlessly teleporting directly to the side of their queen via prearranged coordinates. The man at the head of the triad - Mon-El's eyes widen as he takes in a face he knows, looking maybe some twenty years older, but still, a face he never thought he'd see again.  
  
"My lord - " Telos, who had been by his father's right hand for years, clearly recognizes him, too, and automatically moves to fall to a knee to the heir - and then stumbles forward, nearly toppling, when he takes in the tableau, Mon-El still crouching by Rhea's unmoving body. "The queen - "  
  
"She's dead," he says, unnecessarily.  
  
The three of them take a knee, heads bowed respectfully. As he tries to process what to do next, how to get to Kara, now that Daxamite ships are apparently streaming into Earth's atmosphere, he hears them chanting something, quietly, in his unforgotten native tongue, in near unison. His blood runs cold.  
  
_"Beya Ozara. Beyalat Ozaren."_  
  
_The queen is dead. Long live the king._  
  
Oh, grife. Grife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Kudos to Lina for guessing that Lena shot!  
> * Yeah, did anyone think through that if Lar was dead, and Rhea was dead, that that posse of Daxamites would recognize Mon-El as the heir to the throne?  
> * The Daxamite is almost-entirely made up :P There's not much of an archive or translator of it online.


	3. Chapter 3

"Agent Danvers!"   
  
From her position in command central, wondering why J'onn's link has gone silent, she whirls around at the shouting, watching other agents leap out of their seats, cluster around the screens.   
  
"We have multiple bogies on a flight path toward National City!"   
  
"How many?"   
  
"Ten. No, twenty-five. No ... "   
  
************************************  
  
"Alex!" Kara shouts into her comms, over the rush of wind from the portal. "Winn! Are you seeing this?"   
  
She's frozen, standing on the sand, where the jolt of electricity threw her. But her spinning mind suddenly recognizes the shapes of the ships, the patterns of lights on their wings. They're the sportcar version of the Daxamite royals' warship.   
  
************************************  
  
"Your orders?"   
  
He's still seated on the ground, staring in shock at his mother's body, staring in shock at a man he thought had died long ago.   
  
"My lord - my condolences. But - your orders?"   
  
As Telos presses, he looks up at this man, who is old enough to be his father. _His father._ He can't do any of this.   
  
"What were my mother's orders?" he asks, stalling.   
  
"Arrive here with force, subjugate the natives, and relocate the remaining Daxamite populus."   
  
Yes, it's _exactly_ as bad as he thought.   
  
"We're not invading Earth," he says, stupidly.   
  
"Seventy nine surviving soldiers and military-trained on the ships that have breached atmosphere," Telos says, voice neutral. "Fifty-six civilians and servants traveling in transport."   
  
Mon-El knows what he's asking - where should these people go, if they're not to follow through on the original plan?   
  
He _can't_ do this. He can't make this call.    
  
Except he must. He's the only one in a position to stop what could escalate into chaos. Not Kara, at the moment. Not J'onn. Him.

_"You can still be scared while being brave."_

But he can't come up with a plan, except -   
  
"Stand down."   
  
He has no idea what to do with all of these people. He wants to tell them all to leave, to forget they ever heard of this place. Except - he can't. They're not just people. They're _his_ people. How many are there? Where have they been? How have they survived?   
  
"Stand down," he repeats. "But ... stay in orbit. Cloak the ships. Don't engage."   
  
One of the other two soldiers, standing behind Telos, fidgets. "Commander - "   
  
Telos holds a hand up. Scrutinizing Mon-El with green eyes that don't break contact, he presses a series of buttons on his communicuff.    
  
************************************  
  
"They're veering off course," Winn says, zooming in on the charts to show Alex. "They're not heading into the city anymore."   
  
************************************  
  
"Kara?"   
  
She's watching the lights disappear into the clouds, winking out one by one - cloaked? - when her earpiece crackles to life.   
  
"Kara? Where are J'onn and Mon-El? They're not answering comms."   
  
Her heart freezes in her chest - what has Rhea done now? - before she takes off like a shot.   
  
************************************  
  
"What's going on?" Lena, still at the computer monitor, demands.   
  
But before anyone can say a word, Kara whooshes back through the shattered skylight and drops lightly to the ground. It takes her only an instant to see the body on the ground, to see J'onn, still catatonic, and to start forward.   
  
"Mon-El!"   
  
"Kryptonian," he hears a mutter. The two younger guards' hackles immediately go up, both tensing in a stance universally recognizable as battle-ready, and she whirls at the sound of their boots shifting on the floor. Lena snatches the gun back up from alongside the control panel. She's good in a crisis, he'll give her that.  
  
"Everyone, stop!"   
  
He's in the middle before he realizes he's found his feet. Kara and Lena check. The soldiers check. In the nervous detente that follows, Kara's eyes land on the blood staining his forearms.   
  
"You're hurt."   
  
"It's not mine." He resolutely avoids looking back down, but the sadness in her eyes as she puts the pieces together and reaches out toward him makes his throat catch.   
  
"I'm so sorry."   
  
He wishes he could just collapse into her, to hide and let someone else deal with the mess. But the most he'll allow himself is a brief squeeze of her hands - even as the trio of Daxamite soldiers mutters amongst themselves - before they turn back to the horror of the rest of the scene.   
  
"What happened to J'onn?"   
  
He bends to retrieve the small metal circlet that had fallen from his mother's hand and skidded across the floor, and, not letting go of Kara's hand, for the moment, crosses the room to hand it to Lena. "You can explain what this does?"   
  
She nods. "I think, with access to the right equipment, I could tap into it - "   
  
He nods, before turning back to Kara. "You need to take him back to the DEO."   
  
"What about you?   
  
"Let me deal with - this."   
  
"Mon-El - " She balks, clearly remembering how she'd been minutes from losing him on his parents' ship.   
  
"Supergirl." He maintains the need for secrecy, but turned toward her, where Lena can't see his face, he mouths her real name, _Kara_ , his eyes begging her for trust. "Take J'onn and Lena. Go back to the DEO. I'll meet you there as soon as I can. I promise."   
  
She looks at him for a long moment before her shoulders drop, just a fraction of an inch, and she nods. "I trust you." And that, more than anything, completely unnerves him.   
  
Kara lifts J'onn like he weighs nothing, wraps an arm around Lena's waist, and they are gone. Just like that, he's alone again. He turns back to face the soldiers, his heart pounding. 

**Author's Note:**

> *This is my plot bunny on "one of the many ways things could have gone differently." As you can tell, it picks up at the end of 2x20, 'City of Lost Children,' and will start veering off canon from there.  
> 


End file.
